Midday 1923

Felice Casorati’s "Midday," at the Revoltella Museum, Trieste, is a painting I keep coming back to. The painting itself has a strangely staged feeling, like a photograph or film still, with its strangely arranged figures. It almost feels as if the artist is trying to put the world to rights, and this is what he came up with! The heavy, dusky tones feel almost claustrophobic, and the palette is restrained, the skin tones of the figures have a chalky, muted quality, like living statues. I wonder about the three figures in this painting. The one in the background, perched, reading, seems almost disembodied, cut off from those at the front. What connects these figures? Perhaps, like so many paintings, "Midday" is not one thing, or at least not only one thing. Perhaps Casorati wanted to suggest a sense of ambiguity and invite us to ponder the many possibilities of what painting can be.